A Single Source

by Peter Hanington

  Carver swam up and down a couple of times then stopped and floated belly-up in the deep end, staring at the palm trees and pale blue sky above. His presence there was a significant obstruction for the several hotel guests attempting to do a few lengths before lunch, but he didn’t give a toss – he was thinking.

  He was worried about Nawal but he was also increasingly angry with himself for not recording an interview with her when he’d had the chance. Even with a good eyewitness account from Nawal the gas canister story was going to be a hard sell. Without her testimony all he had was the canister – which they’d decided was safest kept hidden in Jean’s room – and a second-hand story. It was a dead duck. He was interrupted by a poke in the midriff from a fellow swimmer alerting him to the fact that Jean Fitzgerald was standing poolside and trying to get his attention. He swam over and trod water in the deep end while Jean lowered herself on to her haunches – a feat that impressed Carver more than somewhat. She was holding a piece of Seti Hotel headed notepaper.

  ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’

  ‘Sidney Poitier?’

  ‘Tragically not. We’ll have to make do with Abdul Balit.’

  ‘Today? I mean tonight?’

  Jean nodded. ‘I s’pose no notice means more secure as far as he’s concerned? Though judging by the amount of activity in the hotel kitchen, I think we’re just about the last people to know.’

  Carver put a hand on the side of the pool to rest. ‘And you still want me in on this?’

  ‘I’ve got no choice.’ Jean pointed at the letter. ‘According to this, the colonel is expecting to see you and me both.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘No idea, but worst-case scenario we get something to eat that isn’t frittata. Have you got something to wear?’

  Carver shrugged. ‘I’ll find something. How about we get a drink beforehand? Just you and me. For Dutch courage?’

  Jean shook her head. ‘I’d love to, but Father Rumbek just told me he’ll come and finish the interview off early evening. After I’ve done with him I’ll need every spare second to fancy myself up.’

  Carver swam a couple of slow lengths but his mind was racing. He lumbered from the shallow end, dressed and was making his way back through the dining room towards the lift when the combination of noise and smell drifting from the direction of the hotel kitchen distracted him.

  He walked over and poked his head over the swing doors. Mr Akar had borrowed cooks from hotels and restaurant kitchens across Cairo to ensure that Colonel Balit’s visit went to plan. Nearest to where he was standing Carver saw two men in chef’s whites shucking oysters and pulling them from their moorings; next to them, another pair were scrubbing and de-bearding mussels; and all this seafood was being dropped into a huge copper pot that was bubbling away on the largest hob the Seti kitchen had. Carver lifted himself on to tiptoes and saw inside a rich red bouillabaisse. The chef on the other side of the pot was chopping a bony-looking fish into large-sized pieces and dropping these in too. Beyond him, Carver recognised the Seti’s regular chef, the big man he’d met before, who was busy skinning rabbits, a task which in his huge hands looked as simple as a person shuffling off a fur coat. There was no sign yet of the chef’s speciality: the Tutankhamun pudding, but Carver was sure that would make an appearance later.

  He decided he would try and enjoy the dinner – if not the company of the man he was dining with. He wiped his wet mouth dry against his sleeve and moved away from the doors and in the direction of the lifts.

  Zahra caught up with Carver just outside his bedroom and almost shoved him inside. She pushed the door shut and spoke quickly, her voice a nervous whisper. ‘Have you heard anything about Nawal?’

  Carver shook his head. ‘Nothing, I’m sorry. But I’ve got calls in to—’

  ‘I have been thinking about it. You must ask Colonel Balit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was the army that took her; if anyone can find out where she has gone, it is him.’

  Carver shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’

  ‘Please? We have no other choices. Look at these …’ She got her phone out and scrolled through screen after screen of messages, all sent to Tsquare Lawan and all asking where they had gone. ‘It is not just me; others need her – thousands of others.’

  ‘Let me think about it.’

  Zahra sat down on Carver’s bed and started twisting the thin silver ring she wore on her middle finger, round and round.

  ‘Nawal always says that I have a lion’s heart.’ Zahra smiled but when she spoke there was a catch in her voice. ‘She taught me to be brave, so I am trying to be brave – but I am scared.’

  The Way of Sorrows (ix)

  Near Zuwara, northern Libya

  Of the one hundred and four people who had climbed into the pick-up trucks on the Sudanese border, eighty-one arrived at the ocean. Neither Titus, Dumac, nor Salim or her daughter were among the eighty-one. The traffickers deposited their cargo in a half-finished tourist development on the Libyan coast. Among the buildings the smugglers had requisitioned were a breezeblock warehouse and, for people who had paid more, a couple of half-built villas facing the sea.

  The villas were part of a government initiative, aimed at attracting what one senior Libyan politician described as pink gold: European tourists who had tired of Portugal, Spain, Morocco and the rest and might try this stretch of Libya’s coastline instead. Gebre and Solomon were given space in the warehouse along with well over a hundred other men, women and children, most of them also from the south: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia. The Libyan gang who ran this part of the operation provided sleeping bags, inflatable mattresses and a limited amount of food; they also warned their guests against leaving the development unless they were willing to risk being picked up by the police or a rival gang. Beyond delivering this warning, the smugglers made little attempt to guard the group. The only part of the development that was under regular guard was a long shed, newly built and painted black. The shed was surrounded by thick curls of barbed wire and windowless. The rumour among the people who’d been there longer than Gebre and Solomon was that it was used to store coffins.

  Within a few days Gebre had regained his strength and was turning his mind to the next leg of their journey – the sea crossing. Every day he’d ask when they might travel and different members of the smugglers’ gang would shrug and provide different reasons for the delay: they were waiting for the right weather; or for the boats that would take them to Europe to be fully fitted out; the tides were not right yet but would be before long and so on. Gebre wanted to believe these might be the reasons but instinct told him otherwise and as the numbers of desperate travellers being housed both in their breezeblock warehouse and the other buildings grew he became more sure of what was happening.

  ‘It is the economies of scale, Sol. Do you remember they taught us about this at school?’

  Solomon shook his head.

  ‘The more people they move in one go, the more money they make. If they move us all at once then they only have to pay one night of wages to the men they will need to move us, one bribe to the police and the coastguard and whoever else they need to look the other way. I am sure.’

  Gebre tried to spend the endless hours of waiting as usefully as possible; he was determined to understand everything he could about what the sea crossing would involve – giving him and Solomon the best chance of surviving it. With this in mind he befriended the youngest and most biddable member of the smuggling gang, an overweight teenager who was related in some way to the gang’s leader and who Solomon insisted on calling Jabba but whose name was Wanis. Wanis responded to Gebre’s invitations to friendship, partly because he was as bored with the waiting as anybody else but also because he’d discovered he had a taste for Marlboro cigarettes and Gebre was generous.

  The best place to smoke out of sight of the rest of his group was on the roof of one of the unfinished villas and this was where
the pair would go. Gebre taught Wanis some words of English and doled out the cigarettes and Wanis would reciprocate, answering Gebre’s questions honestly.

  ‘This wait is so long, perhaps we will not go at all?’

  Wanis shook his head and choked on his attempt at a smoke-ring. ‘Don’t worry, you will go.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Gaddafi wishes it. He wants to send a message to Europe and you are the message; he wants Europe to see that if they get rid of him, boatloads of blacks like you will start arriving every week.’ Wanis was smiling; there was no malice in the answer.

  ‘Will you travel with us when we go to Europe?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘No way, I will not take a boat. I am saving my money for a passport and a plane ticket.’

  Gebre had heard that this was possible, that there were people who would produce fake Bulgarian or Italian passports, which, in theory, could allow you to fly to Europe. But the sums of money involved in securing such things were huge, not thousands but tens of thousands.

  ‘I will fly. It is more expensive but I have seen what the sea can do.’

  Gebre gave him a questioning look.

  ‘Your trip will not be the first trip we do. I was here last time, and it was bad.’

  ‘The boats didn’t make it?’

  ‘Some did, one didn’t; the people panicked and the biggest boat went down. Not far from here.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘The sea brought the bodies back.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘On the beach? Twenty-three people. At the bottom of the sea we think two hundred or more. I will show you the pictures from the beach if you want? I am not supposed to but I will.’

  Gebre passed Wanis another cigarette, which he pocketed, and in return received his mobile phone. The pictures were of women, men and children, all lying face up on the sand and shingle and all dead. Their limbs appeared swollen and blue; in some pictures the skin was split with bones visible – like boiled meat, Gebre thought. Some of the dead children had enormous stomachs like famine babies, puffed thighs, rounded arms. Where the limbs had been cut by rocks or who knew what, the photographs showed a frothy fluid seeping from these cuts – like burst sofa cushions. The worst picture of all showed a baby girl in a dress, her face bloated and a bloody plume of froth at her mouth and nose. Gebre forced himself to look – he looked at every picture and when he’d finished, he handed the phone back.

  ‘Why do you keep these?’

  Wanis shook his head. ‘I don’t know, I never look at them. But I can’t delete them.’

  Gebre nodded and then fell silent as he tried to process this information, these numbers. Two hundred and twenty-three people. Gebre decided that he needed to know more about the accident, he needed to know everything.

  ‘What happened to the bodies?’

  ‘We moved them, buried them together in a hole.’

  ‘You didn’t use the coffins.’

  ‘What coffins?’

  ‘The coffins in the long shed, the coffins that people talk about.’ Wanis seemed suddenly very nervous. ‘You’re talking shit. I should go.’

  Gebre put his hand on the young man’s arm. ‘Sorry, don’t go, please. Like you say it’s probably just people talking shit. I guess it’s just good that they were buried, you did the right thing.’

  Wanis shrugged. ‘Bodies on the beach are bad for business, that is what my uncle says, that is the reason he told us to bury them. Are you travelling alone?’

  Gebre shook his head. ‘No, my brother will be with me, we’ve been together for this whole journey.’

  Wanis nodded.

  ‘Okay, at least he is young. Strong. Travelling with parents or little children is bad. Alone is good. You must think only about yourself, that’s how to survive. You can be a good person again, but later, when all this is over, do you understand?’ The young Libyan was looking at Gebre as he said this but his voice was so low that he might almost have been talking to himself.

  Gebre shook a couple more cigarettes from the packet and was lighting them when something occurred to him. ‘Solomon doesn’t swim.’

  Wanis shook his head. ‘Then he must learn. You are going to sea; it is foolish to think you will not have to swim. God willing it will only be a few metres, a little swim from your boat to the land in Italy or somewhere, but it could be more than that. Things go wrong. My uncle says that what kills people is the panic; they are so full of fear they wave their arms and shout and swallow water … and then they drown. Your brother needs to know the water.’

  26 Fakes and Pharaohs

  DATELINE: The Seti Hotel, Cairo, Egypt, February 2 2011

  Father Rumbek spotted Carver the moment he walked into the hotel bar. He began gesticulating with such an extravagant display of arm waving that he looked like he was signalling an aeroplane on to its stand. Carver complied and wandered over.

  ‘Mr Carver, I thought that was you, I hoped it was.’ Father Rumbek smiled. ‘You see I am in my uniform now – you cannot mistake me for what I am not!’ The priest waved a finger in the direction of his dog collar and grinned. ‘Can I buy you a coffee? Or perhaps something stronger? The Holy Roman Church will pay.’

  ‘In that case, sure. Is Jean—’

  ‘You have just missed her. We were finishing my interview.’

  Carver nodded. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Very good. Miss Fitzgerald says I have the storyteller’s gift.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  A waiter took their order: one black coffee and one bottle of the local beer – Carver wanted to keep his wits about him with Colonel Balit but one beer wouldn’t hurt.

  ‘My only problem is that I speak too quickly and when that happens my accent can make it difficult.’

  ‘I wanted to ask about your accent. Italian, but before that … Eritrea?’

  ‘You are close – Sudan. I have worked in Eritrea too. And Ethiopia. God’s work has taken me to many places.’

  Father Rumbek had been talking about himself for a couple of hours already, probably filling up several of Jean’s miniature cassette tapes. Still, he seemed more than happy to start again for this new audience. He told Carver the story of a young Sudanese theology student, serving his apprenticeship in Asmara, Addis and Khartoum back in the 1970s before Rome came calling.

  ‘It must have been a difficult decision.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Leaving your family behind, your friends?’

  Father Rumbek dismissed the question with a shake of the head. ‘It was God’s plan and we cannot argue with that. I did not have too much family to speak of and one can always make new friends.’

  Carver shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ He drained his beer. ‘I’ll look forward to reading the whole story when Jean’s finished writing it.’

  The priest was nodding enthusiastically. ‘I hope that people will find some interest in my work. Maybe Rome will read it and provide me with an assistant? There is so much to be done here in North Africa but it seems I am the only person they have available to do it. I have become a tuttofare. Do you have a word like this? Someone who has to do all the work?’

  ‘A dogsbody?’

  Father Rumbek clapped his hands together. ‘Dogsbody! Of course, perfect. Our conversation always finds its way back to dogs, Mr Carver. I am a dogsbody – but you will never hear me complain.’ At that moment his phone began to ring, the old-fashioned ringtone Carver had heard before. Father Rumbek glanced at the screen. ‘Ah, forgive me, but I will need to take this.’ William watched him gather up his papers and briefcase under one arm and hurry from the bar, the phone pressed against his ear.

  Carver checked his watch. He decided to call on Jean; they could walk to dinner together. He took the lift, straightening his tie in the mirrored glass on the way up. He strode up the long carpeted corridor and knocked.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me, William.’

 
Jean opened the door. Her hair was tied up and she was wearing a long black dress and silver earrings.

  ‘You look … you look nice.’

  Jean looked at Carver. ‘Thank you, Billy. So do you, very handsome.’ She pulled the door wide and encouraged him in.

  Carver sat on the bed and waited while Jean put on a little lipstick.

  ‘You know I was just thinking, sitting at the mirror, in most lives, you only get a few brushes at happiness.’

  Carver nodded; this was the sort of conversation he preferred to avoid. ‘Right.’

  ‘And that for me, almost all those brushes at happiness have involved you. Either in a supporting or a starring role. I wonder what I should make of that?’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Billy. That was rhetorical.’

  Carver glanced around the room; the Garden Suite had been emptied of its surplus furniture and its more gaudy pieces of art. What remained was an oblong dining table, covered in a pristine white cloth and set for three – one setting on each of the longer sides and one at the head of the table, facing the garden. The French windows had been left open and the yellow curtains were pulled back. Mr Akar had removed all but two sofas and one occasional table. All the gold-framed mirrors were gone. The fireplace was set but not lit and the golden sphinxes had been so well polished that the shine on them hurt the eye. The walnut grandfather clock had been brought back from the dead and tocked loudly with every slow second that passed.

  Colonel Balit walked into the room at seven o’clock precisely; he kissed Jean’s hand, shook Carver’s and without any hesitation took his place at the head of the table. He was a bald-headed, large-bellied man in an ill-fitting but impressively decorated army tunic – the shoulder boards several-starred. The colonel shifted his weight back into his chair. He looked around at the room and then at the table, which was already heavy with food – small plates of various cold and hot dishes, breads and olives. He gave a satisfied sigh.